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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Halos Heaven: Baseball Reference… Site of All Sites

Hey…it’s Sean’s birthday! Diet Cokes for everybody (and I do mean everybody)! Hip Hip Hooraymond Harold Flaskamper!

We are a few weeks away from the Hall of Fame vote. Today is the birthday of a man I believe belongs in the baseball Hall of Fame. He never played major league baseball. But his efforts have completely transformed the understanding of the game and it’s history.

His name is Sean Forman. He built Baseball Reference Dot Com. For nearly a decade, this website has been the leading source of baseball statistical information. The entire history of our great game, the men who have played it and every possible measurement of every play that could be recorded is located at Baseball Reference.

When it comes to accelerating one’s comprehension of baseball, no single source of accessible information in the history of the game even comes close to GIVING any fan with a browser the access and information. Please note that I said “giving”... as most of everything at Forman’s site is free, quickly loading and well organized. Like baseball itself, those with more curiosity about the big picture, the intricacies or just about any facet of the game are always amply rewarded for embarking on a search to know more.

...So Happy Birthday, Sean Forman, and may Cooperstown come calling on baseball’s most important civilian one day.

Repoz Posted: December 14, 2008 at 03:18 PM | 71 comment(s) | Login to Bookmark
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1. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 03:34 PM (#3028628)

Indeed! A happy birthday to Sean. While I may not use it as much as some around here, and while I may still not have gotten around to getting P-I even though I want it, and while I'm still irked at losing the contest for the free P-I, I know what life would be like without B-R. Let me thank you most for the little things: registering bbref.com so I don't have to type the whole thing out every time, and for the love of Pete, being one of the few websites around (I'm looking at you, IMDB) that autoplaces the cursor in the freaking text box! Those are the little touches that make the big thing. Retrosheet comes pretty close to meeting the criteria above, but you deserve all the credit in the world, because you don't have an army of volunteers. Though you could if you wanted one.

Now, if I could just convince you to make it easier to cut and paste from your tables into Excel...

2. flournoy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 04:02 PM (#3028637)

The best part about BBRef is the plain text format, no images or bells and whistles.

3. MajorTom Posted: December 14, 2008 at 04:16 PM (#3028644)

There is no best part of BBRef. It just... rules.

4. shoewizard Posted: December 14, 2008 at 04:24 PM (#3028646)

Sean,

Happy Birthday. My enjoyment and understanding of the game has been enhanced greatly by your work. I can't think of a better testimonial than that.

Cheers!

5. Padraic Posted: December 14, 2008 at 04:33 PM (#3028651)

And the best part of all...he's a Phillies fan!

Great site; been proving people wrong with B-ref for at least 6 years now.

6. Keith Law Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:01 PM (#3028663)

I'll vote for Sean when I get the vote in 2043.

7. aleskel

Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:05 PM (#3028666)

Happy birthday, Sean. Truly you are doing the Lord's work.

8. Shredder Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:23 PM (#3028676)

Happy birthday, Sean. Keep up the good work.

9. RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:31 PM (#3028678)

Someone needs to run a Keltner test on Sean.

10. Bleed the Freak Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:32 PM (#3028679)

A tip of the cap is in order to Sean Forman for everything he has given to the sports fan.

Don't forget his database at baseball1.com, which is downloadable Microsoft Access and or Microsoft Excel files.

Or the books that he has penned on Pro Football.

Thanks Sean!

11. Gamingboy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:37 PM (#3028680)

Sean Forman= awesome.
Baseball Reference= awesomer.

Sorry, Sean, but your creation has surpassed you and, should it gain sentience, will replace you.

12. Nasty Nate Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:39 PM (#3028682)

but your creation has surpassed you and, should it gain sentience, will replace you.

Baseball reference could pass the Turing test!

13. Gamingboy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 05:42 PM (#3028684)

Baseball reference could pass the Turing test!

Yes, but can it kill Sarah Connor?

14. Walt Davis Posted: December 14, 2008 at 06:19 PM (#3028699)

The HoF? Piffle.

B-R is one miracle.
The Play Index is a second.

Just one more and we can write to the Pope.

15. JoeC Posted: December 14, 2008 at 06:26 PM (#3028705)

B-R is one miracle.
The Play Index is a second.

Just one more and we can write to the Pope.

Sean, do you know any card tricks? [/Father Guido Sarducci]

Happy birthday... like everyone else here, B-R never ceases to amaze me. Not just for how much information it contains as how intelligently it's presented.

And every time I go to P-I I find something interesting. Did you know that, of all the starting pitchers with losing records (and >1000 IP), the top three by ERA+ were all White Sox? Sounds about right...

PS. The Baseball1 Database is by Sean Lahman, isn't it? Another baseball-loving "Sean ***man" who doesn't get the credit he deserves.

16. Pasta-diving Jeter (jmac66) Posted: December 14, 2008 at 06:35 PM (#3028712)

Did you know that, of all the starting pitchers with losing records (and >1000 IP), the top three by ERA+ were all White Sox? Sounds about right...

even more interesting, of all the starting pitchers with a winning %age > .600 (and >1000 IP), the pitcher with the worst ERA+ is also a White Sox (Sock)

17. Crispix Attacks Posted: December 14, 2008 at 06:37 PM (#3028714)

Not to mention the shameful lack of Hall of Fame consideration for Sean Bergman. He was the heart and soul of that great 1998 Astros team.

18. Harold Posted: December 14, 2008 at 06:42 PM (#3028718)

Happy birthday, Sean, and thanks for everything.

For Jeff and others who want an easier way to copy/paste to spreadsheets, check out this spreadsheet. If you copy and paste a guy's season lines into column A, it parses the lines, already has formulas for calculated columns, etc. You can also subtotal seasons using the rows at the bottom.

I had planned to put the spreadsheet up on Google Docs or something to make it more available, but it turns out Google Docs doesn't support all the lookup functions and stuff I used.

19. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 06:47 PM (#3028721)

Office 2007? You suck.

20. Sean Forman Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:03 PM (#3028734)

PS. The Baseball1 Database is by Sean Lahman, isn't it? Another baseball-loving "Sean ***man" who doesn't get the credit he deserves.

Yes it is. He also is the one who wrote the very good Historical Pro Football Abstract. Sean Holtz runs baseball-almanac.com, another very good site.

Since you were all so nice to offer me birthday wishes, I'll post the link to where we are testing out the redesign. THIS IS NOWHERE NEAR COMPLETED AND IS NOT UPDATED IN A MEANINGFUL WAY AND MANY MANY THINGS ARE BROKEN OR NOT COMPLETED, but anyways. ETA is spring training 2009.

http://sandbox.baseball-reference.com/

21. Crispix Attacks Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:06 PM (#3028738)

I like the photos, but some of them are inaccurate, especially Morrie Critchley.

Who decides what the canonical photo of somebody is?

22. PASTE is not impressed by Albert Pujols (Zeth) Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:07 PM (#3028739)

Speaking of which, I know the chances of this happening are zero, but when Vladdy Daddy hits the Hall of Fame, I say his plaque should be featuring an Expos cap.

23. Repoz

Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:10 PM (#3028742)

ETA is spring training 2009.

I open up the Ted page and I see tons of Blck Ink, Vlade, and Don Malcolm.

Sweet!

24. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:13 PM (#3028745)

Ted Williams Bottom Tab
Ted Williams

Superbas
Brooklyn Superbas
Superbas

25. Gamingboy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:13 PM (#3028746)

I'd also like to applaud the highly underrated and underpublicized BR Bullpen wiki (which, I'll admit, I have never done any edits to... yet). I'm glad that the link to the Bullpen will be even more prominent in that new redesign. Too often people just miss the link as they are scrolling down to the stats.

26. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:15 PM (#3028747)

YAY

Copy/Paste as plain text dumps it right into Excel cells, all lovely and in the right ones! Hmm...

Now if I could just convince you to give me free P-I for life and also the sponsorships for Mike Stanley and Will Clark...

27. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:16 PM (#3028748)

Btw, from that picture, Ted Williams is definitely a member of the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.

28. Harold Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:23 PM (#3028754)

Fine, Jeff, here it is in .xls format. Untested.

29. Darren

Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:29 PM (#3028758)

Sean,

New site looks good but I liked it better when it had the baseball stats for the players. :)

One way you can tell that bbref has arrived is that I often hear it being used by the idiots on talk radio. They often don't mention it (but you can tell by how their quoting the numbers etc.). When they do mention, it's an off-handed comment, like "yeah, that number's from baseballreference." There's no controversy or question about the source, it's simply stated, just as they might say they got something off the Baseball HOF site, or MLB.com, or from the Bible.

And the best part of all...he's a Phillies fan!

If you think Red Sox fans are letting him go this easily, you're nuts.

30. Gamingboy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:41 PM (#3028763)

There's no controversy or question about the source, it's simply stated, just as they might say they got something off the Baseball HOF site, or MLB.com, or from the Bible.

...And Forman said LET THERE BE STATS.

31. Harold Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:51 PM (#3028768)

Superbas
Brooklyn Superbas
Superbas

I guess I know what my legacy will be here. At least among the IRC crew.

32. Miko Supports Shane's Spam Habit Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:53 PM (#3028770)

what's the story behind the Cube? It's not nearly as good, but it's not a bad stats site, either. The design isn't as nice and the ads are a bit much.

33. Miko Supports Shane's Spam Habit Posted: December 14, 2008 at 07:56 PM (#3028771)

I like the subtotals by team on the player pages. Man, was Pedro great for the Sox.

34. JoeHova Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:04 PM (#3028773)

what's the story behind the Cube?

Yeah, I've wondered that too. I like the way they even have college stats for most guys. I check it a lot less since bbref added minor league stats though.

But I echo the birthday wishes to Sean, great site, great work.

35. Gamingboy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:07 PM (#3028774)

I think that the Baseball Cube is done by a Canadian. His blog talks aobut Hockey alot and I remember once reading that he was having trouble getting motivated about Baseball for awhile after the Expos left.

36. Meatwad is on team keefe Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:08 PM (#3028775)

its amazing how many players look like vlad

37. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:15 PM (#3028780)

Vinaynay, what's the big swath of unresolved functions in the middle? I'm trying to parse the statement and it's not making sense to me.

38. The District Attorney Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:15 PM (#3028781)

Btw, from that picture, Ted Williams is definitely a member of the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.

Hey, he was half-Mexican...

39. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:20 PM (#3028784)

Yeah, I've wondered that too. I like the way they even have college stats for most guys. I check it a lot less since bbref added minor league stats though.

Yep, me too. That's how you *really* know BBRef has arrived. Sean is the Sam Walton of online baseball stats. He decides to put something on the site, and all the other sites that thrive on having that info (like Cube and minor league stats) have to throw up their hands and say "Okay, what do we do now?"

For instance, if tomorrow BBRef had full contract information and not just salary per year, why would I ever go to Cot's again? Walmart/BBRef is ruining the small business owner.

40. Bob Dernier Cri

Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:29 PM (#3028787)

He also is the one who wrote the very good Historical Pro Football Abstract. Sean Holtz runs baseball-almanac.com, another very good site

Sean is too modest, however, to note that he won the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize for founding Amnesty International.

41. Morally Excellent Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:35 PM (#3028790)

Wow, Ted Williams looks nothing like I'd pictured. ;-)

Damn I wish I could help out with the re-design, but Pittsburgh is too fat...

42. Gamingboy Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:39 PM (#3028793)

Let's go over what niche sites BBref has yet to drive into irrelevency:

European Baseball Tournament Stats
Stats for the Pro League in the Netherlands
Japanese Stats
The Baseball Cube's rudimentary College, Independent and International Stats

And there have to be bunch of sites out there that are not in English that have KBO, CPBL, CBL, Italian, Cuban, Venezuelan, etc stats. Do not rest Forman.

43. Harold Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:40 PM (#3028794)

Vinaynay, what's the big swath of unresolved functions in the middle? I'm trying to parse the statement and it's not making sense to me.

Just copy the text from B-R into column A. For rows that are there, it will parse everything. The spreadsheet has a lot more rows than you'll normally need, though, and those are full of errors, which you can ignore (if this were really ready for prime time, I would make them blank, but this is just something I play with).

I use this mostly for getting subtotals of ranges of seasons, like time spent with a particular team, or various definitions of "prime years". I think I created this specifically to compare Manny's stats with the Sox vs. those with the Indians, then felt curious to look at similar totals for Alomar and Pedro.

44. Morally Excellent Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:40 PM (#3028795)

I'm thinking the Hall of Fame banner might look better as a border.

45. jwb Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:48 PM (#3028798)

I am thankful that you are using your powers for good. Happy birthday!

46. Steve Treder Posted: December 14, 2008 at 08:51 PM (#3028799)

THIS IS NOWHERE NEAR COMPLETED AND IS NOT UPDATED IN A MEANINGFUL WAY AND MANY MANY THINGS ARE BROKEN OR NOT COMPLETED, but anyways. ETA is spring training 2009.

http://sandbox.baseball-reference.com/

And thus all superlatives in the lexicon are yet again rendered obsolete.

47. scareduck Posted: December 14, 2008 at 09:29 PM (#3028815)

Since you were all so nice to offer me birthday wishes, I'll post the link to where we are testing out the redesign. THIS IS NOWHERE NEAR COMPLETED AND IS NOT UPDATED IN A MEANINGFUL WAY AND MANY MANY THINGS ARE BROKEN OR NOT COMPLETED, but anyways. ETA is spring training 2009.

http://sandbox.baseball-reference.com/

And he gives us presents on his birthday. How nice can one man be?

Baseball Cube is useful because they have a lot of extended stats (BB/9, K/9 for instance) that B-Ref doesn't (yet). Their search sucks, though.

48. Justin T contains indigenous nudity Posted: December 14, 2008 at 09:41 PM (#3028817)

I used to use the Cube more, then the guy who runs it started a hockey website that had a lot of cool stats. And like three months into that season updates stopped. I emailed him and after a few weeks he got back to me that it wasn't getting enough activity. Seemed like kind of a short leash, and I soured on the Cube at that point and rarely use it anymore.

49. Morally Excellent Posted: December 14, 2008 at 09:42 PM (#3028818)

Their search sucks, though.

Speaking of sucky searches, what can I do to have this very site fix theirs?

50. Jeff K. Posted: December 14, 2008 at 09:45 PM (#3028819)

You have to feed the chimp a banana. Or Daly. Same thing.

51. Howie Menckel Posted: December 14, 2008 at 09:52 PM (#3028822)

The Forman takeover of the world won't be complete until he stops making the manager record the main page of great players like Fred Clarke and Clark Griffith.

Imagine how many readers look up Clarke, get annoyed, finally find the tiny "playing record" crossover, and they're finally where they need to be.

And think how great a site you have when that's the fiercest gripe that can be levied...

52. Los Angeles ALBERT F. PUJOLS of Anaheim

Posted: December 14, 2008 at 10:12 PM (#3028829)

I would have named my daughter Baseball-Reference.com, but my wife would get upset. I hope everyone here's sponsoring at least one player, or subscribes to PI.

53. Walt Davis Posted: December 14, 2008 at 11:00 PM (#3028843)

I would have named my daughter Baseball-Reference.com

Better than Bronx Mowgli

Also BR Sabathia has a ring to it.

EDIT: added the second lame joke -- lucky you!

54. Bitter Calculus Instructor Posted: December 14, 2008 at 11:54 PM (#3028868)

[52] Nah. I mooch.

55. Jeff K. Posted: December 15, 2008 at 12:24 AM (#3028877)

Sean is not responsible for bselig/bselig. That was HCO.

56. Meatwad is on team keefe Posted: December 15, 2008 at 12:33 AM (#3028881)

bselig still works in may places chicago trib for one

57. Brian

Posted: December 15, 2008 at 12:35 AM (#3028882)

Thanks Harold, that spreadsheet will come in handy. Also, thanks Sean. Seems like a good time to throw a few dollars in the Bref jar.

58. Repoz

Posted: December 15, 2008 at 12:54 AM (#3028887)

Sean is not responsible for bselig/bselig. That was HCO.

I was once interviewed by ESPN duh Magazine about the bselig/bselig set up (it seems one the wigbigs over there was using it and found it hilaripus and wanted an article on it)...it all went downhill when I went on to explain R. Budd Selig.

59. Gamingboy Posted: December 15, 2008 at 01:07 AM (#3028890)

Repoz also deserves to be in the HOF. Problem is, if we were to pay off enough of BBWAA to write in "Repoz", they'd probably induct the other Repoz instead.

Sorry, bad joke.

60. A One-Shoed Craig K Posted: December 15, 2008 at 02:41 AM (#3028913)

Speaking of which, who's going to be the first major leaguer to sponsor their own BR page?

Or has it already happened?

61. Bitter Calculus Instructor Posted: December 15, 2008 at 03:09 AM (#3028930)

[61] Repoz isn't eligible. He was one season short. Maybe use the Addie Joss clause?

62. Jeff K. Posted: December 15, 2008 at 03:12 AM (#3028934)

I was once interviewed by ESPN duh Magazine about the bselig/bselig set up (it seems one the wigbigs over there was using it and found it hilaripus and wanted an article on it)...it all went downhill when I went on to explain R. Budd Selig.

I remember the interview. I do *not* remember that an ESPN bigwig was using bselig/bselig.

Jesus, bselig got more well known than I remembered:

Look in the comments (search for bselig): Helpy Helpums says "You can use this for almost any news source anywhere:
username: bselig or bselig@mlb.com
password: bselig
July 30th, 2004 at 1:45 pm:

Some guy's blog: Here's another critique of the Dean interview conducted by Diane Sawyer: the most startling thing in here may be that 90 of 96 questions had to do with the personalities of each Dean. What the hell kind of journalism is that? Where are the policy questions? (That's from the LA Times; use "bselig" for username and password).

Batters' Box sold us out - a family section on the 200-level where the noises and lights are toned down, placing ads in the Life and Entertainment sections of local papers, and even buying advertising time on broadcasts of Desperate Housewives. (bselig/bselig to register if needed)

Another blog - ProJo Article on the Providence Kickball League
The Providence Journal investigates the Providence Kickball League. You may recognize the PKL if you've ever stumbled across Johnny Mattoid's Kickball Reports. But odds are, unless you're Klutch.xls, you haven't.

Funny article. Funny sport.

username: bselig@bselig.com
password: bselig

Another - lemmee in. what happened to the all purpose bselig/bselig username/password

Another - The Bud Selig trick is to use "bselig@mlb.com" as the username and "bselig" as the password. Not sure how this actually works on so many sites, but it does. (We read a lot of ####!)

-----------------------------------

And the thread that started it all.

Pretty funny when you think about it.

63. Nasty Nate Posted: December 15, 2008 at 03:18 AM (#3028937)

What are the most view bbref player pages of all time? of this year? this month? today?

64. Dag Nabbit and his imaginary friends Posted: December 15, 2008 at 04:35 AM (#3028959)

Happy b-day, Sean. You're the only person I know whose birthday I added to my files of historical dates. (Nerdy hobby? I soaking in it).

Sean website updates & the Lahman Dtabase have both been brought up, does anyone have any idea when the Lahman Database will update for 2008 info?

65. Good cripple hitter Posted: December 15, 2008 at 04:54 AM (#3028966)

What are the most view bbref player pages of all time? of this year? this month? today?

All-time: Bonds, Ruth, A-Rod, Aaron, Clemens, Jeter, Griffey, Sosa, Williams, Mantle.
Yesterday: Burnett, Sabathia, Wigginton, Ibanez, Texiera, Lowe, ManRam, A-Rod, Sheets, Daniel Cabrera.

You can find all-time players and teams here, and yesterday's and last week's here.

66. Jeff K. Posted: December 15, 2008 at 05:03 AM (#3028970)

Chris, it's supposed to be in the next few days. I was there the other day after downloading a copy of OOTP 2006 to try, to see if I wanted to buy OOTP 9.

67. AROM Posted: December 15, 2008 at 05:11 AM (#3028975)

Happy birthday Sean. Love the new pages. Especially Ted Williams looking like Vlad. Please never change it.

68. Alex meets the threshold for granular review Posted: December 15, 2008 at 10:24 AM (#3029023)

What the hell is Jim Morris doing at #20? What am I missing?

69. Jeff K. Posted: December 15, 2008 at 11:52 AM (#3029025)

Jim Morris was "The Rookie". They did the movie on him. My parents were at that game (the actual one, not the fake one they filmed for the movie.)

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